In this “bonus” article I’ll discuss the use of custom reporting within Google Analytics. The custom reporting section is very versitile, and it can be used to create a variety of reports that can be exported into an excel document, PDF, XML or CSV file. Moreover, you can set up the reporting to automatically send you a weekly or monthly updated by email.
Now let me review a few ideas for setting up your custom report. Keep in mind that the custom reporting works by asking for specific metric to use (site usage, content, goals, etc). In this example we’ll use ‘content’ as our metric. Within content there are many different metrics to choose from, but we’ll use ‘unique pageviews.’ Simply drag unique pageviews to the first open metrics space.
Next you’ll want to create your dimension for measuring this metric. There are several dimensions to choose from, such as visitors, traffic sources, content, etc. For this example we’ll use ‘traffic sources’, and within traffic sources we’ll use ‘source/medium.’ The source/medium dimension will tell us how people found the website. Simply drag source/medium to the open spot for dimension.
Now it’s time to preview the report. Click ‘preview report’ at the bottom of the page and you’ll see your new custom report pop up. It should list all the sources of traffic to your website (direct, referral, search engine) and all the page views that each of these sources generated. You’ll notice that you can even click on any of the sources to drill down even further. I recommend experimenting with different types of reports. Try replacing ‘unique pageviews’ with ‘goals’ as your metric. This will allow you to see where your goal conversions are coming from.
Once you are happy with your new report and you’ve previewed it, make sure that you name it. Then you’ll want to create the report (click ‘create report’ at the bottom of the page). Once you’ve created the report the last step is to schedule it to be sent out regularly, so that you don’t even have to login to Google Analytics to see it. Simply click ’email’ at the top of the page and enter the email addresses you’d like the report sent to, the format of the report (I recommend PDF so that you can click on links in the report), and the date range (weekly, monthly, etc).
If you need any help setting up custom reporting for your website then contact TRBO ADvance or call 877-673-7096 x2, and we would be happy to help.
